Hello,
I graduated from one of the top 20 research university in the U.S. in winter 2018 (a semester early) with 4.0 and 517 on MCAT (took it in June 2018). I always thought of applying to US med schools so just like other pre-meds, I spent a significant amount of time conducting basic science research, shadowing physicians, working as a TA, etc. Here comes the complicated situation. As a person who immigrated to U.S. with family in high school, I also considered MD options in my home country as well. It would have been ideal to coordinate the application timeline for med schools in US and my native country but unfortunately, med schools in my home country decided to shut down its admission path for people with 4-year college degree after 2018 so I just applied to schools in my home country first before applying to US schools and ended up getting into the #1 school in my country (the school is ranked about the 30th in the international med school ranking).
Right after graduating from college, I attended and completed the first year of med school from March to December 2019 with a good academic standing (the first semester in my home country starts in March). But as time passed by and reflecting on my shadowing experiences in the US, I realized I would like to practice medicine and live in the US. Don't get me wrong. The school I attended is full of great professors and smartest, kindest, funniest classmates. Although most of our textbooks are from the US, the emphasis, values, and cultures seemed to be different from those of US. There is still a way to get residency training in the US as an IMG, but I see way more benefits attending the US med schools. I might share the same medical knowledge with US MDs; however, I would not get the same clinical exposure needed to become a better clinician in the US. Also, with my family's decision to stay in the US and go through the naturalization process, I also applied to the US citizenship and recently became a US citizen in last February. Due to my citizenship interview and passport process, I am currently on a leave of absence for a year and plan to apply to US MD schools this coming cycle as a first-year applicant (no transfer option is available for med students outside of US and Canada).
I already checked with several schools about my eligibility. For instance, HMS stated in its website that any previous matriculant regardless of country is not eligible to apply and Stanford admission has the same policy as HMS. But there are other schools that told me I am eligible to apply. However, I am scared that my previous matriculant status would raise a huge red flag in my application. I checked SDN and other online forums to see if there were people in the similar situation. But most cases were about someone who withdrew from med school due to academic or mental issues. Although I am not required by AMCAS to submit my foreign med school transcript, I would be willing to provide it to schools and will state my GPA and percentile rank on my "previous matriculant" space. Thank you for reading this long post!
